Authority Update

This update contains brief details of recent Government publications, legislation, cases and other developments relevant to those involved in local government work, which have been published in the previous two weeks. Items are set out by subject, with a link to where the full document can be found on the internet.

This update contains brief details of recent Government
publications, legislation, cases and other developments relevant to
those involved in local government work, which have been published
in the previous two weeks. Items are set out by subject, with a
link to where the full document can be found on the internet.

If you have been forwarded this update by a colleague and would
like to receive it direct please email
Claire Booth.

All links are correct at the date of publication. The following
topics are covered in this update:

DCLG: Local government transparency code 2014:
this updated statutory Code of Recommended Practice sets out
what information must be published by local authorities
and how often it must be produced. New requirements in the revised
Code include:

a breakdown of income and expenditure on the authority’s
parking account and how the authority has spent a surplus on
its parking account;

information about counter fraud work;

information on trade union facility time;

details of all land and building assets; and

details of their existing waste collection contracts.

The revised Code is expected to come into force in early
November 2014.
DCLG has also published a frequently asked questions document that
addresses technical questions which are related to the publication
of specific data sets. (1 October 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Emma Godding.

LGA: The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing
Act 2014 – Implementing the community trigger: guidance on
the new powers regarding anti social behaviour (ASB) case
reviews (the "Community Trigger") which will provide victims
of ASB with the right to request a review of how local agencies
have responded to previous ASB complaints and consider what further
action might be taken where the behaviour persists. This guidance
sets out the statutory requirements for agencies and explores how
the community trigger might be implemented locally. (24 September
2014)

Absolute Ground for Possession for Anti-social
Behaviour (Review Procedure) (England) Regulations 2014 (SI
2014/2554): s.84A of the Housing Act 1985 (inserted by the
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014) provides for a
new, absolute, anti-social behaviour ground for possession of a
dwelling that is the subject of a secure tenancy. Section 85ZA of
the Act provides secure tenants of local housing authorities and
housing action trusts with a right to request a review of the
landlord’s decision to seek possession under s.84A. The landlord
must review the decision if the tenant requests it. These
regulations, which come into force on 20 October 2014, specify the
procedure to be followed in an internal review by a local housing
authority or housing action trust of its decision to seek
possession under the new absolute ground for anti-social behaviour
under s.85ZA(7) of the Housing Act 1985. (25 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Steven Eccles.

Localis: Public land, public good – Getting maximum
value from public land and property: this report highlights the
potential for public land and assets to be used for developing new
housing, reshaping public services, and boosting local economies.
The report's findings suggest that councils are reacting to ongoing
austerity by acting more like property developers looking to
redevelop assets that would provide streams of revenue income to
help support public services. However, according to a survey
one in six councils sold property assets for less than their
optimal value to fill funding gaps. It recommends that local
authorities across the country should have a co-ordinating role for
public service land in their locality, acting as custodians of
their local communities, and all arms of central and local
government should be required to produce an annual public register
of assets. Also, there shuold be a local authority ‘hit squad’ of
highly experienced officers, tasked with maximising returns on
council assets. (17 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Sandy
Munroe.

NAO: Draft Code of Audit Practice for the audit of
local public bodies: seeks views on the draft Code of Audit
Practice for the audit of local public bodies. The Code
prescribes the framework within which local auditors are to carry
out their statutory responsibilities under the Local Audit and
Accountability Act 2014. The auditor’s application of the contents
of the Code will be influenced by their professional judgement of
what is reasonable and appropriate, reflecting the circumstances at
individual local public bodies. The consultation closes on 31
October 2014. The NAO aims to publish the finalised Code
before the end of 2014 that would take effect from 1 April 2015 for
audit work relating to the 2015-16 financial year onwards. (19
September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Olwen
Dutton.

DCLG: Safeguarding vulnerable children:
the Secretaries of State for Communities & Local
Government and for Education have written to council leaders in
England about the safeguarding of vulnerable children. They
ask all council Leaders to read Professor Jay's report into child
sexual exploitation in Rotherham and to consider whether their
authority has adequate measures in place, in advance of Louise
Casey's statutory inspection. (24 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Clare Taylor.

County Councils Network: Our plan for Government
2015-20: this report lays out a bold new relationship between
central and local government, centred on a new Core Settlement,
extensive fiscal devolution and reforms to LEPs to boast economic
growth and achieve a vision of ‘One Place, One Budget’. The plan
makes a case for strategic English councils to gain further powers
for accelerating local growth, improving children's services,
ensuring the long-term viability of adult social care and for the
next Government to launch a comprehensive review of how local
authorities are funded centred on bringing decisions closer to the
communities they effect. (17 September 2014)

Key Cities: Charter for devolution: the Key
Cities group of 24 of England’s mid-sized cities is calling on
all political parties to do more to empower cities to
stimulate growth, create jobs and deliver a better return not
just for their residents but for the whole country.In its Charter for Devolution, the group calls for English cities to
be provided with single-city budgets with all public funding for
their city pooled into one block with funding fixed for a five-year
period. City leaders would then be free to allocate funds without
interference from Whitehall red tape, thus stimulating jobs and
growth while also improving lives for their
residents. (22 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Steven Smith.

DfE: Universal infant free school meals:
this departmental advice gives details of schools' obligation
to provide free school meals to all pupils in Reception, Year 1 and
Year 2. It provides information on eligibility, food standards and
funding, along with the implementation support available for
schools and the impact of the policy on the pupil premium. (30
September 2014)

Welsh Government: Qualified for life – An
education improvement plan: the Welsh Government has published
its education plan for 3 to 19 year old in Wales
that sets out its vision and aims for education up to 2020. It
outlines four strategic objectives that will help deliver
improvements in the sector, which centre around a strong work
force, an engaging curriculum, internationally respected
qualifications and education leaders working together to drive up
standards. The plan sets out how the Welsh Government
will measure progress and identify improvements, including the
annual publication of a Wales Education Report Card that will
detail a range of performance indicators and show how successful
Wales has been in meeting them. The plan reinforces the Welsh
Government’s key education priorities of raising standards in
literacy and numeracy and breaking the link between deprivation and
low attainment. It also sets out a new ambition of achieving scores
of 500 for reading, mathematics and science in the PISA tests 2021.
(2 October 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Clare Taylor.

DBIS: Blowing the whistle – List of prescribed
people and bodies: if an employee decides to "blow the
whistle" to a prescribed person rather than their employer, they
must make sure that they have chosen the correct person or
body for their issue. This document lists the prescribed
persons and bodies to whom a disclosure can be made. There is
also a brief description about the matters that can
be reported to each prescribed person. (1 October
2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Sarah Lamont.

House of Commons Library: Litter – Commons Library
Standard Note SN/SC/6984: local authorities in England and
Wales spend almost £1bn per year clearing up litter, but the cost
of litter goes beyond the cost of clearing it up: there are
implications for health, the environment and tourism. This note
outlines the financial cost of litter, relevant legislation and
penalties for the offence of littering, forthcoming legislation and
how to combat litter. It does not cover fly-tipping. (11 September
2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Nadeem Arshad.

Karia v Leicester City Council [2014] EWHC 3105 (Admin)
(Admin Ct): K applied for judicial review of the Council's
decision to close a care home. K was a British Asian woman of
Gujarati descent, aged 101, and had lived in the home since 1999.
She contended that the Council, in making its decision, had
breached its Public Sector Equality Duty under s.149 of the
Equality Act 2010, had breached her human rights and her legitimate
expectation of a home for life at the care home, and had failed to
take into account K's likely future care needs and whether these
could be met in alternative potential placements.
The court held, refusing her application, that while it had
sympathy with K and understood her concerns, its task was to apply
the recognised legal principles which showed that there were no
valid grounds for challenging the Council's decision. The s.149
duty was not a duty to achieve a particular result - the Council's
duty was only to show "due regard" to the need to advance equality
of opportunity, not to ensure that equality of opportunity was
achieved. The Council had considered how K's linguistic, cultural,
dietary and religious needs could be met and had confirmed that K
and other residents would only move from the home when appropriate
alternative provision had been found for her which was suitable to
meet her various needs. There was nothing in K's Placement
Agreement which showed that K would be entitled to remain in the
home in certain circumstances, e.g. if she was and would continue
to be the only resident there or if it was unsafe for her to live
there because of a serious defect in the building. So she was not
entitled to an order quashing the decision on the grounds that she
had a legitimate expectation to remain at the care home for life.
(30 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Olwen
Dutton.

Welsh Government: Collection and management of
devolved taxes in Wales: this White Paper sets
out proposals to establish arrangements for the collection and
management of devolved taxes in Wales. it is the first
of three consultations that will be undertaken concerning
proposals for Welsh taxes. Consultations on proposals for Welsh
taxes to replace Stamp Duty Land Tax and Landfill Tax will follow
in spring 2015. The consultation covers:

Cabinet Office: Carers Social Action Support
Fund: the Cabinet Office has launched a £1m fund
for social action projects that support unpaid family carers.
It is inviting applications from voluntary, community and social
organisations that have plans to expand or develop ambitious
social action projects that will help to improve the lives of
carers. The guidance notes set out the eligibility criteria
and the application process. The closing date for completed
applications is 22 October 2014. (22 September 2014)

LGO: Councils advised about care charging following
complaint: the Local Government Ombudsman is advising
councils that they cannot significantly change contractual funding
arrangements for current care home residents because they alter the
way they commission care. It says that councils should not reduce
the amount they pay for care home placements, and leave families to
find the difference, where there are funding agreements already in
place for a particular level of care. The advice follows an
investigation into the way Tameside MBC had
acted when it changed the way it commissioned care. (3 October
2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Olwen
Dutton.

DEFRA / DCLG: Delivering sustainable drainage
systems: seeks views on a proposal to make better use of the
planning system to meet the Pitt Review's recommendations on
sustainable drainage. It sets out an alternative approach to
the one envisaged in the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to
deliver effective sustainable drainage systems that will be
maintained for the lifetime of the developments they serve. The
Government is now proposing to deliver sustainable drainage
systems through changes to the current planning regime. The
consultation closes on 24 October 2014. (12 September
2014)

HC Public Accounts Committee: Maintaining strategic
infrastructure – Roads: this report examines the issue of
strategic road infrastructure. It concludes that the DfT
and the Highways Agency are making progress in improving the
way in which road maintenance is carried out, but more needs to be
done. it finds that the DfT’s piecemeal and stop-go approach
to funding for road maintenance in recent decades has made it
difficult for highways authorities to deliver maintenance
cost-effectively, with too much reactive work and not enough focus
on preventative work that is less expensive in the long-term.
Two-thirds of local highway authorities have formed alliances with
other authorities which has reduced their costs; however, not all
local authorities have adopted good practice and the Highways
Maintenance Efficiency Programme (HMEP) is not sufficiently
targeted at assisting poor performing authorities - for example, 45
local highway authorities had not completed an asset management
plan setting out the state of their roads. The DfT should identify
those local highway authorities that carry out maintenance less
efficiently and target the HMEP at them. It should use
the HMEP to help local authorities quantify the benefits of
more preventative work and to anticipate problems rather than react
to them. DfT and DCLG should examine the cumulative impact of their
combined funding decisions on local authorities’ road maintenance,
and they should adjust their approach accordingly to support
essential routine road maintenance activities. (25 September
2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Jonathan Turner.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Landlords' strategies
to address poverty and disadvantage: this paper summarises the
findings of a poverty-focused review of housing organisations’
strategic and business plans. It examines social landlords' written
strategies, business plans and other policies across 15 local
authority areas. It finds that building homes either for commercial
sale or rent, or for letting at Affordable Rents, is increasingly
prevalent among housing associations. Most business plans also did
not mention 'poverty' directly but spoke in broader terms about
'disadvantage' or providing housing for those 'in need'. It also
found that some associations are moving away from focusing only on
those in the most severe need. (17 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Steven
Eccles.

Cabinet Office: Procurement Policy Note 09/14: Use
of Cyber Essentials scheme certification: the Cyber
Essentials scheme defines a set of controls which, when properly
implemented, will provide organisations with basic protection from
the most prevalent forms of threat coming from the internet. There
are 2 levels of certification: Cyber Essentials and Cyber
Essentials Plus. Cyber Essentials is for all organisations of all
sizes, and in all sectors. This PPN advises that the
Government is making the scheme mandatory for central government
contracts advertised after 1 October 2014 which involve handling
personal information and providing certain ICT products and
services. (26 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Emily Heard.

DCLG: Ministers move to defend independent free
press: announces that the Government is taking action against
11 councils over the frequency of their municipal newspapers. The
Secretary of State has written to the local authorities giving
notice of a Direction that he proposes to give to them under s.4A
of the Local Government Act 1986 requiring them to comply with the
Recommended Code of Practice on Local Authority Publicity. It has
been revised to clarify the guidance on payment between public
authorities and business. (26 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Olwen
Dutton.

Home Office: Temporary event notice form:
updated form for use by applicants to inform the local
council, the police and environmental health about a planned event
at which they intend to sell or supply alcohol on a temporary
basis. (1 October 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Adam Kendall.

CfPS: What Rotherham and Mid-Staffordshire tell us
about scrutiny, and where it’s lacking: this briefing
analyses the implications of recent service and governance
failures for council scrutiny. The report’s findings point to a
scrutiny culture that places too much store on the assurances of
people in authority that everything is fine. Too many council
scrutiny committees are content to discuss items where the only
source of evidence is a report written and presented by a chief
officer and councillors are asked merely to note the
contents. It argues that monitoring officers must “step up to
the plate” in ensuring that their organisation's
Constitution functions correctly and protects those whom it is
designed to protect. (17 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Olwen
Dutton.

NLGN: The DIY ethic – Business models for community
integration: this research report from NLGN in association with
the CBI and Pinnacle PSG outlines business models that councils can
adopt to help them work towards integration. It offers practical
assistance for all councils who wish to pursue integration of their
services but are unsure how to go about it. Key findings are that
councils should rapidly test new business models, start small and
develop models at a neighbourhood level that can be built upon.
Councils and their partners will also need to develop a joint
approach to managing risk. (17 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Bethan
Evans.

Cabinet Office: The statutory register of lobbyists
draft regulations: Part 1 of the Transparency of Lobbying,
Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014
provides for a statutory register of consultant lobbyists. The
register will: increase transparency by requiring those who lobby
on behalf of a third party to disclose the names of their clients
on a publicly available register; require lobbyists to declare
whether or not they subscribe to a publicly available code of
conduct; and help improve standards by enhancing the scrutiny of
the ethical principles for lobbyists. This consultation seeks views
on the draft regulations that will complete the statutory framework
needed to implement the register. The consultation closes on 17
October 2014. (11 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Olwen
Dutton.

DWP: Housing Benefit Circular A14/2014 – Special
Educational Needs (Consequential Amendments to Subordinate
Legislation) Order 2014 (SI 2014 / 2103): new regulations
(SI 2014/2103) amend the Housing Benefit regulations as a
consequence of the passing of the Children and Families Act 2014.
From 1 September 2014, under Part 3 of the Act, parents of children
and young people with SEN can ask for them to be assessed under a
new participative assessment process which will provide them with
an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. The parents of
children and young people with an EHC plan will also have the
option of a personal budget through which they will have control
over how some of the provisions set out in the EHC plan will be
delivered. This circular explains how this affects Housing Benefit.
(22 September 2014)

DWP: Universal Credit data sharing with social
landlords – Consultation on draft regulations: seeks views
on draft Social Security (Information-Sharing in Relation to
Welfare Services etc) Amendment Regulations 2015 which will amend
SI 2012/1483 to allow the Secretary of State to share relevant
information with social landlords in certain situations. The
information shared by DWP will enable social landlords to assess
and provide support to their tenants who have made Universal Credit
(UC) claims or receive UC. Social landlords will include registered
social landlords, local authorities with their own housing stock,
and arms length management organisations. The proposed changes will
come into force in January 2015 and will be implemented from
February 2015 onwards. The consultation closes on 19 October
2014. (19 September 2014)

If you wish to discuss any of the items noted in this section
please contact Olwen
Dutton.

Related Tags

Keep up to date with Bevan Brittan

Connect

The information on this website is of general interest about current legal issues and is not intended to apply to specific circumstances. It should not, therefore, be regarded as constituting legal advice.